The Greatest Philosophical Fiction
This selection of the 44 greatest works of philosophical fiction is based on the continuing research carried out for The Greatest Literature of All Time and additional research into philosophical literary works acclaimed by the world's readers, writers, critics and scholars.
Philosophical fiction of course is fiction that addresses philosophical themes. This may seem like a narrow field of literature—until you consider how wide-ranging philosophical themes can be, taking up issues of morality, science, religion, politics, aesthetics, metaphysics, law, language, education and almost every other human concern. You can put the words "philosophy of" before the name of almost any human endeavour and find a field of study someone would find worth writing or reading about.
In The Greatest Philosophical Fiction we try to take as wide a view of philosophy as possible while still making the distinction useful.
The list is continually updated as new works are discovered and appreciation of older works evolves. Please note the current revision date when citing the list.
Latest update: April 10, 2025
c.385–370 BCE
The Symposium
by Plato, Greece
Dialogue
c.380 BCE
The Republic
by Plato, Greece
Dialogue, also known as
Plato's Republic
It is hard to know how to classify the philosophical classic The Republic, or any writing by Plato, as literature. Or to know even whether it is a literary work. It's published writing, so it is literature in the broadest sense. But.... Critique • Quotes •
Text • Buy
c.370 BCE
Phaedrus
by Plato, Greece
Dialogue
c.1125
The Improvement of Human Reason
by Ibn Tufail, Spain
Novel
1516
Utopia
by Thomas More, England
Novella
1747
Zadig; or, The Book of Fate
by François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, France
Novella, originally Zadig ou la Destinée,also known as Zadig the Babylonian
1759
Candide
by François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, France
Novella
1761
Julie; or, The New Heloise
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Switzerland
Novel, originally Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse
1795–1796
William Meister's Apprenticeship
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany
Novel, originally Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre
1796
Jacques the Fatalist and His Master
by Denis Diderot, France
Novel
1797–1799
Hyperion
by Friedrich Hölderlin, Germany
Novel, originally Hyperion; oder, Der Eremit in Griechenland, also known as Hyperion; or, The Hermit in Greece
1836
Sartor Resartus
by Thomas Carlyle, Scotland
Novel, also known as Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books
1864
Notes from Underground
by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russia
Novella
1865–1869
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy, Russia
Novel, originally
Voyná i mir
After spending a good part of a summer living in and out of War and Peace, I was dismayed to learn Leo Tolstoy disdained the book in his latter years. The novel, whose title has become shorthand for monumentally.... Critique • Quotes • Buy
1866
Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russia
Novel, originally Prestuplenie i nakazanie
1872
Erewhon
Novel
I'm not sure we should even call Erewhon a novel. If it is one, it's a novel of ideas. Not like, say, one of Aldous Huxley's novels of ideas though. Great ideas don't play out among characters or decide the plot. In Butler's.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy
1880
The Brothers Karamazov
by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russia
Novel, originally Brat'ya Karamazovy
1883–1885
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
by Friedrich Nietzsche, Germany
Novel, originally Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen
1885
Marius the Epicurean
by Walter Pater, England
Novel
1913–1927
In Search of Lost Time
by Marcel Proust, France
Novel, originally À la recherche du temps perdu, also known as Remembrance of Things Past
1924
The Magic Mountain
by Thomas Mann, Germany
Novel, originally Der Zauberberg
1925
The Trial
by Franz Kafka, Bohemia
Novel, originally Das Schloß
1930–1943
The Man Without Qualities
by Robert Musil, Austria
Novel
1932
Brave New World
Novel
I wonder if people who refer to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World as a cautionary tale—that is, those who aren't confusing it with George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four—could actually spell out what it is cautioning against.... Critique • Quotes • Buy
Journey to the End of the Night
by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, France
Novel, originally Voyage au Bout de la Nuit
1933
Man's Fate
by André Malraux, France
Novel, originally La Condition humaine
1938
Nausea
by Jean-Paul Sartre, France
Novel, originally La Nausée
1938–1945
The Space Trilogy
by C.S. Lewis, England
Novel series includes Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength.
1942
The Outsider
by Albert Camus, Algeria
Novella, originally L'Etranger
1943
The Little Prince
Novella
The books that became cult—and counterculture—favourites in the iconoclastic 1960s and early 1970s can be divided into two categories: 1. Those that were written during and for that period, such as Stranger in a.... Critique • Quotes • Translations • Buy
1944
No Exit
by Jean-Paul Sartre, France
Play
1948
No Longer Human
by Osamu Dazai, Japan
Novel
1949
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Novel
George Orwell's dystopian novel has had the fortune to be acclaimed in the West by two usually opposed groups—right wingers and left wingers. The former saw it as a denunciation of collectivism in all its forms.... Critique • Quotes • Buy
1952
Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison, United States
Novel
1959
The Golden Notebook
by Doris Lessing, England
Novel
1961
A Severed Head
by Iris Murdoch, England
Novel
1974
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Novel
Two kinds of people are apt to hate Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: advanced philosophy majors and advanced novel readers. As a novel, Zen is terrible. Virtually no narrative, cardboard characters, and generally.... Critique • Quotes • Buy
1979
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
by Milan Kundera , Czechoslovakia
Novel
1980
The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco, Italy
Novel, originally Il nome della rosa
1988
Wittgenstein's Mistress
by David Markson, United States
Novel
1988
The Alchemist
by Paulo Coelho, Brazil
Novel, originally O Alquimista
1991
Sophie's World
by Jostein Gaarder, Norway
Novel
1996
Infinite Jest
by David Foster Wallace, United States
Novel
2008
Anathem
by Neal Stephenson, United States
Novel
